


drugs from your skin, high like skyscrapers

by amasianfish



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, I'm Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 14:06:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3853438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amasianfish/pseuds/amasianfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaw feels the tingles of pain in her raw forearms and relishes it. It proves she's still here, still sane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drugs from your skin, high like skyscrapers

Shaw lays in the hospital bed, arms restrained and sore. Grooves in her skin show the history of her attempts to break through the velcro and rough material. Shaw feels the tingles of pain in her raw forearms and relishes it. It proves she's still here, still sane.

Another reminder of her lucidity comes in the dull aching of her abdomen, pulsing in the two gunshot wounds inflicted by the blonde bitch. The pain isn't too bad, given the amount of drugs being pumped into her IV, but gut wounds can sting for weeks. Shaw doesn't know how long she's been in this hospital room, since Greer spoke to her about the "wonderful" things she'd do, her transition into the "role she was born for." Shaw had spit at him with a cocky smirk, and he had simply left the room, an equally smug smile on his wrinkly face. 

How long has she been here? Someone in stark white scrubs appears every day to give her food through a tube. The injected meals blur together. No clocks, no clues at all as to where she is hidden. Only the steady beeps of the heart monitor. Again, again, again.

 

~~

 

Shaw passes the time by imagining all the ways she could kill Greer and Lambert and Martine. 

She imagines wiggling her arms out of the restraints, seizing the IV stand and swinging it around as a staff, smashing it right into Greer's altogether unpleasant complexion and hearing the skull crack.

She imagines springing up, ducking Lambert's right cross and getting in a hit of her own, then kneeing him in the stomach, elbowing his back until he's bent on the edge of falling, and looping an arm around his neck until he chokes.

She imagines grabbing Martine by her prissy blonde bun and shoving her face into the end of the metal bed frame, ripping the heart monitor from its stand, hearing the beeping increase at an exponential rate, and slamming it into the base of her skull.

She imagines Harold scolding her for her excessive use of violence and bad bedside manner.

The monitor beeps. Again, again, again.

 

~~

 

Shaw jolts out of sleep to the door shutting. 

"Agent Shaw."

Shaw's lip curls. "Martine."

The woman smiles sweetly. "How are you doing?"

"I'd be better if you'd let me loose so I can kick your ass. Then I'd be great."

Martine looks somewhat amused by the prospect. "Maybe one day. As for today, we have a different schedule."

Shaw stares at her. "Are you going to tell me or are you going to bore me to death?"

"Where is the Machine located?"

Shaw snorts. 

Martine waits, arms crossed.

"As if I knew," Shaw finally retorts. "No one knows. And let's face it, you're not getting jack shit out of me. Might as well kill me now."

"Unfortunately for me, Samaritan has other plans for you. Including squeezing some information out."

Martine produces a knife from her jacket pocket, and Shaw rolls her eyes.

"I'm not sure if you know this, but I kind of enjoy this sort of thing."

Martine approaches Shaw in her bed, a glint in her eye. 

"We'll see how long that lasts."

As Martine questions Shaw about locations and plans and people, the heart monitor beeps increasingly fast, and the words get mixed with the electronic beeps and eventually, hours later, a scream. 

Again, again, again.

 

~~

 

Shaw's arms are now criss-crossed with deep indents from the restraints and deep cuts from the knife. Dried blood paints her skin, and Shaw tries not to move so she doesn't add to the crimson portrait. 

Martine knew how deep to cut so it wouldn't cause major health issues but deep enough to create real pain. Shaw's only comfort is that she never uttered a word, only a scream at the very end, so loud Martine stepped back, surprised, then pleased at her handiwork.

Eventually, the drugs in the IV numb the piercing in her arms, and Shaw closes her eyes, breathing in time to the beeps.

Again, again, again. 

 

~~

 

Sometime later, Shaw can't really tell, Martine comes in again. 

"I'll skip the pleasantries. It's time for you to give me some information."

Shaw only grins and shakes her head. "Your last attempt was weak. My grandma could torture someone better than you. And she can't even take a shit without help."

Martine moves to sit on the edge of the hospital bed, fiddling with a lighter. "Practice makes perfect, don't you think?

The blonde leans in front of Shaw, her legs on either side of Shaw's body.

"If you wanted some action, all you had to do was ask," Shaw says. "This position is hardly appropriate for a government agent."

Martine glances down, and realizes she's essentially straddling Shaw. "I'm not a government agent, Shaw. As for this, it's the prime position for what I'm about to do next."

Martine begins to unbutton the sides of Shaw's medical gown, and Shaw tries to push her off but suddenly registers that she can't move.

"Today we decided to try a different drug in your usual cocktail. Neuromuscular paralytic. Should make this much easier." Martine smirks. "For me."

She finishes unbuttoning the gown and Shaw's chest is bare and unmoving. "Let's begin, shall we?"

She flicks open the lighter and presses it close to Shaw's collarbone. "Where is Harold Finch?"

Shaw struggles to speak through her stiff muscles, hissing out, "Bite me."

Martine smiles in response.

The heat near Shaw's breast reminds her of a different heat, one from an iron, with a different woman leaning close. 

As the flesh begins to burn, Shaw's mind runs back to that hotel room with Veronica Sinclair, zip ties, and "I do too."

The monitor beeps fast. Again, again, again.

 

~~

 

Shaw remembers a conversation.

"Hey sweetie. You busy?"

"A little. Skip the verbal foreplay, Root; why you calling?"

"Can’t a couple of gals take a little break from work to catch up?"

"No, we do not have time to catch up. Oh, you guys look like crap."

Shaw can't imagine how she looks now. 

The smell of burnt flesh hangs in the room like a corpse, and Shaw tries to forget that that smell is her.

What is it with women trying to burn her?

When Martine was leaning in close, charring skin and chatting about Harold, John, and Root, the smell of skin was mingled with Martine's perfume. 

It smells nothing like Root's.

Four alarm fire in an oil refinery, remember?

Again, again, again.

 

~~

 

The next time Martine enters the room, two men come in with her wheeling a machine and Shaw's vision is hazy.

"You were a doctor, right, Shaw? I'm sure you recognize this, even if it's gone a little out of practice. Morality issues." 

Shaw can't seem to think, and her gaze focuses in and out on the machine. "Electroconvulsive therapy."

"Good girl. We're not trying to fix you with therapy, honey; we don't give a damn who you fuck in your spare time. No, this is just for the "shock" part."

The two men begin placing the electric nodes on Shaw's head, and Shaw is too disoriented to struggle. 

"Looks like our other drugs are setting in. We'll try these for a few weeks."

Shaw furrows her brow, staring at Martine standing at the foot of her bed.

"You know, torture almost never produces good information," Shaw echoes. She thinks she hears Root laugh.

"Maybe this is just for me," Martine says back. A man puts a rubber piece in Shaw's mouth, then moves back to the machine and waits.

"Start."

The machine whirs and Shaw forgets how to breathe. Her arms rub angrily against her restraints, and the old gashes open back up, and Shaw doesn't even notice. Her eyes roll back in her head and she bites down so hard she tastes blood.

After some amount of time, she can't tell, it stops, and she falls back onto the cot, eyes wide. The mouthpiece is removed, and she lays there, quaking. 

"How does the Machine contact you?"

"She doesn't contact me," Shaw finally says when she can control her mouth. The air is wavy and cloudy, and Shaw curses every goddamn machine in existence.

"Then who? Harold Finch? His pet? Your pet?"

Shaw's jaw clenches at that last query and regrets it instantly as a stabbing pain hits her. 

"Who does the Machine contact and how?"

Shaw closes her eyes. She shouldn't have said anything.

"Again," Martine says, and Shaw can hear her impatience. The mouthpiece is put in place, and Shaw tenses and waits.

Shaw can't hear the heart monitor through her own muffled screams, and the blinding white light in her eyes burn worse than the fire had.

"Again."

Again, again, again.

 

~~

 

Between torture sessions, Martine chats with Shaw.

"You know she's looking for you."

Shaw opens an eye and sees the ever familiar blonde. It's all a sea of blonde.

"Samantha Groves. Somehow she has a connection with the Machine. I don't suppose you know?"

Shaw closes her eye. She sees Root smiling that smile reserved for Her, and Shaw smiles.

"She's following all the clues we left for her. She's passing every test."

"She will kill you," Shaw hears herself say.

Martine chuckles. "She will try. Wouldn't be a half-bad sight to see as my last."

Shaw's stomach churns and she grimaces.

"Oh right, Ms. Groves is yours, am I correct?"

There's a silence, and Shaw desperately wants to say yes but swallows it instead.

"Shame. She's wasted on a sociopath."

Shaw hears Martine leave the room, and she's ashamed. Even in the isolation of this room, she can't admit what Root does to her.

The disjointed beeping of the heart monitor admits it for her, and Shaw is lost into the sea.

Again, again, again.

 

~~

 

"Sameen, if you even think I'm gonna let you-"

Shaw stares into Root's eyes, and a decision is made.

Her lips burn and her eyes after burn even worse, and her screams consume Shaw.

Things are getting foggier, but Shaw remembers those clear as day.

Bullets have nothing on Root's screams.

 

~~

 

The door opens a long while later, maybe a few weeks, though Shaw can't tell ever since they changed her chemical concoction, and this time it's a woman with brown hair. 

"Did you miss me?"

Shaw's breath hitches.

"Root?"

The woman doesn't answer for a moment, then replies.

"Haven't seen you this bad in a while. Did you at least get in a hit?"

Shaw sighs out in relief, and smiles for the first time in a long time. "Thank god you're here. Help me out of this velcro. How did you find me?"

Root approaches. "The Machine helped us."

"I'm glad She's talking to you again. You were annoying as hell when She wasn't."

"Yeah, She calls often."

Shaw frowns. "Why is she calling? Why isn't she just talking to you through your implant? Wasn't that the point?"

Root smiles broadly. "You're right."

Shaw huffs. "Aren't I always? Let's go."

"Once we get you out of here, where will we go?"

"I dunno, the subway? Who the hell cares; let's fucking go."

Root freezes then backs away. "She's telling me I have to go. Sorry, Shaw. I'll come back for you, I promise."

The door shuts behind her and Shaw wants to die for the first time since she's been captured.

She briefly wonders if Root changed her perfume. It's familiar, but still off.

 

~~

 

Shaw wakes up, and the door is open. Her head foggy and dazed, she struggles with her arm restraints and reopens some wounds. Root had to have left the door open for her, she had to have come back. With more vigor, Shaw manages to break free and sits up fully for the first time in weeks. She moves slowly and awkwardly, stumbling out of the bed and ripping the IV out of her arm. The heart monitor beeps a goodbye, and Shaw limps into the hallway. 

It's her first time out of the room, and she takes in her surroundings. Root is nowhere to be seen. There's smoke in the corridor, and Shaw bets it's John and his flash grenades. She vaguely hears gunfire and moves forward, using the wall as support. There's a cart with trays and tools, and a cell phone sits there next to a piece of paper. Shaw picks it up with shaking hands and it reads, "Sameen. Call the contact in the phone and I'll pick up. See you soon."

The handwriting is messy, unlike Root's normal script, and Shaw thinks it's probably because she was in a hurry. She calls the only contact on the phone and it rings a few times. Shaw's heart beats fast in anticipation, and she feels alive.

"Hello?" Shaw hears, and it's about damn time she picked up.

"Root? Are you there? It's me. I need your help. I-" 

Shaw feels an injection in her neck and she falls to the ground, the phone clattering out of her grasp.

As Shaw fades away, her eyes staring into the satisfied smile of John Greer, her cut off sentence resonates in her head.

_I want to talk about someday._

It's all too familiar.

Again, again, again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry.  
> This was inspired by that post circulating Tumblr about Shaw being drugged, and then another about Shaw thinking Martine is Root while in a drugged haze.  
> I apologize again. I hope it was good.


End file.
